This week SustainingPeople has seen some really interesting local projects that have taken a different angle on recycling; today we’re looking at our neighbours across the water in New Zealand, they are repurposing old carpet into children’s bicycles.

Wishbone Design is the design company started by a NZ couple who had spent many years living and working in New York, a sustainability design hub – a place where new life is being breathed into old discarded products every day. So Rich and Jenny McIver have taken inspiration from this movement and designed a process that takes the various pats of old carpets, and turns them into rigid forms to create childrens bicycles. What makes them even greater, is that the bikes are customisable as your child grows, so it’s less likely to be thrown out, hence taking up less space in rubbish dumps – which is what we are all trying to avoid anyway.

A product like this is taking the first step towards a closed loop economy, where the remnants of old products can be reused again and again. Pollution is one of the biggest catalysts for human mortality in developing countries – it affects over 100 million people annually which is comparable in size to the effects of epidemic diseases like malaria and AIDS. The quicker we can get to reducing rubbish and reducing landfill, the better off society will be, and the better off our environment will be. Closed loop systems are totally doable, and we are seeing many small scale trials getting off the ground – not to mention large scale projects like the Sahara Forest Project.

Read more about this socially responsible and eco-friendly kids bike here – teaching your kids about sustainable development can start at a young age, and with this bike their journey towards a cleaner future will be fun and colourful and will change and grow as they do!